RECORDINGS VIEW; The Beatles Meet The Bootleggers On Their Own Turf

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems.
Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

AMERICAN BEATLES FANS thought they were in clover back in the 1960's when new albums and singles were pumped out every few months and films, tours and appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" kept the Fab Four in view. But by 1970, when the band split up and its legacy was undergoing serious examination, it became clear that America had seen only part of the picture. Imported records showed that the early American albums were truncated distortions of the British originals. And bootleg recordings of British radio shows brought even hotter news.

These pirated disks revealed that while Americans were hanging by their radios awaiting the hits, British listeners regularly heard the Beatles performing live on the BBC. Between 1962 and 1965, the band played 88 songs on British radio, most in multiple versions for a total of more than 280 performances. Included were 36 songs the group never recorded for its record label, EMI. It is no exaggeration to say that these radio recordings add significantly to our knowledge of what made the Beatles tick: even the familiar songs were played in arrangements that were harder-edged than the fussed-over studio versions.

So the first commercial release of this material -- the new "Live at the BBC" set (EMI/Capitol 7243 8 31796 2; two CD's, cassettes and LP's) -- should be a bona fide big deal. But anyone who knows these recordings, either from their abundant representation on bootlegs or from the BBC radio specials that have been broadcast annually since 1982, will find this collection more flawed than satisfying.

What's wrong? To begin with, the set offers only 56 of the 88 songs, and only 30 of the 36 non-EMI items. Among the missing rarities are a rocked-up version of "Beautiful Dreamer" and a goofy but topical "Lend Me Your Comb." Also glaringly absent are radio renderings of several hits and favorites, including "Please Please Me," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Twist and Shout." EMI apparently believes that only fanatics could want it all. Still, a third disk -- hardly unheard of for this kind of release -- would have allowed the inclusion of one version of every song the band played on the BBC.

MORE DISCONCERTING than the set's incompleteness is its presentation. In the brief period these recordings cover, the Beatles evolved from a high-energy, provincial dance band into polished performers and sophisticated songwriters. Their BBC performances charted that development just as their commercial recordings did, but one would never guess that from this resolutely non chronological hodge-podge, which makes it as far as the 1965 hit "Ticket to Ride" before backsliding toward "Love Me Do," the Beatles' primitive 1962 debut single, an odd finale for this collection.

Not that the set is a total washout. EMI has refurbished these recordings, many of which come from bootlegs or off-the-air tapes, and although a few tracks have the slightly hollow sound that digital noise-reduction processes sometimes yield, most sound far better than anything previously bootlegged or broadcast.

There are some fabulous performances here. Included are "I'll Be on My Way," a Lennon-McCartney song the Beatles never recorded for EMI and a magnificent cover of Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love." Among the familiar songs are a gorgeously supple version of "Baby It's You" and hard-rocking takes of "I Saw Her Standing There," "I Wanna Be Your Man," "Thank You Girl" and "Long Tall Sally" that blow away the studio versions by every measure except sound quality.

Paul McCartney's horizons as both a rock screamer (in Little Richard's "Lucille" and "Clarabella" and "Ooh! My Soul") and as a crooner (in Mikis Theodorakis's "Honeymoon Song") are expanded. Other non-EMI tracks clarify John Lennon's penchant for rhythm-and-blues and George Harrison's preference for rockabilly. Ringo Starr's energetic drumming shows that he was no cipher.

The collection also has an attractive booklet with an essay by Derek Taylor, the band's pal and one-time publicity officer, and detailed annotations by Kevin Howlett, a BBC producer and the author of "The Beatles at the Beeb," a study of the group's radio life. Yet here too there is obfuscation.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

In a rare example of BBC fudging, the solo from the EMI version of "A Hard Day's Night" -- Mr. Harrison on 12-string guitar with the group's producer, George Martin, doubling on piano -- was edited into the BBC performance. Collectors have long assumed that Mr. Harrison was unable to play it properly that day, although he later performed it in concert. Don't expect clarification here: Mr. Howlett matter of factly refers to the edited piece as Mr. Martin's piano solo.

But "Live at the BBC" cannot compare to "The Complete BBC Sessions" (Great Dane 9326/9; nine CD's), a boxed set recently released in Italy, where copyright protection for broadcast lasts only 20 years. The lavishly annotated Great Dane box includes 239 performances and a few outtakes that were not broadcast. All 36 non-EMI tracks are there. And the shows, with their between-songs banter largely intact, are presented chronologically. The set's quality varies, but some tracks ("I'll Be on My Way" and "Johnny B. Goode," for example) sound better than on "Live at the BBC."

IN TRUTH, THE FAULTS OF "Live at the BBC" cannot be laid entirely at EMI's door. With typical bureaucratic thoroughness, the BBC saved all the paper work for the Beatles' appearances but discarded most of the recordings. In recent years, tapes taken home by producers and transcription disks from the libraries of BBC outposts have turned up for some shows, but others survive only on poor-quality tapes recorded off the air. For EMI and the BBC, a minimum sonic standard was deemed more important than a tape's historical interest, so certain performances that posed no problem for Great Dane were out of bounds for EMI. An example is the group's very first BBC radio performance, recorded on March 7, 1962, five months before Mr. Starr replaced Pete Best on drums.

Great Dane was also unencumbered by Apple, the Beatles' privately owned company that now exerts complete control over official Beatles releases. Founded as a utopian anti-corporation, Apple has soured into a corporate dragon best known for filing lawsuits (against EMI, Apple Computers and the "Beatlemania" show), threatening to sue Beatles convention presenters and authors of Beatles books, licensing cheesy trinkets (including commemorative plates and porcelain figurines) and demanding price increases on Beatles catalogue CD's. Even longtime Beatles cultists are beginning to regard all of this as unalloyed greed, and since Apple is, in effect, the surviving Beatles, its endeavors have lost the group considerable good will.

Apple's stewardship of the Beatles' creative legacy, meanwhile, has become increasingly peculiar. Several years ago, the company oversaw a long overdue remastering of the "Let It Be" film and a documentary about the 1965 Shea Stadium concert. Both remain on the shelf, where "Live at the BBC" also collected dust for more than a year before Apple agreed to its release. Apple apparently fears that archival releases will interfere with the marketing of its multipart "Anthology" video project, due at the end of 1995.

EMI, which has found sales of the former Beatles' solo albums disappointing, may be using "Live at the BBC" to measure the market for unreleased Beatles material. There is, after all, plenty of music in the vaults. Among the hundreds of hours of unedited session tape EMI has preserved are a handful of finished but unreleased songs as well as fascinating alternate versions of songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Can't Buy Me Love." A high-quality tape of the group's failed 1962 audition for Decca Records (with three unreleased Lennon-McCartney tunes among its 15 selections) makes enlightening listening, as does "Get Back," the freewheeling original version of the "Let It Be" album. And the acoustic demos for the 1968 "White Album" (which also includes a few unreleased songs) would make a perfect "Beatles Unplugged" album.

While Apple has fiddled and litigated, bootleggers have catered plentifully to collectors interested in these things. If "Live at the BBC" sells poorly, will Apple and EMI draw the right conclusions? Will they realize that sitting on the material for years and then issuing a compilation that cannot compete with more comprehensive bootlegs is not a wise marketing strategy? Will they decide that further archival issues are not worth pursuing? Or will they take stock of their priceless resources and put together the thoughtfully organized collection the Beatles' music deserves?

A version of this review appears in print on December 4, 1994, on Page 2002038 of the National edition with the headline: RECORDINGS VIEW; The Beatles Meet The Bootleggers On Their Own Turf. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe